


either their mantles of green or their maidenhead

by brophigenia



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe- Scottish Highlands, Alternate Universe- Tam Lin Fusion, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, F/M, Fairytale Fusion, First Time, Folk Music, Kilts, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Roses, Tam Lin - Freeform, and boy does he get it, and proko goes trolling for some faerie dick, fight me, flower picking, flower stealing, k is tam lin, maidenhead is SO a gender-neutral term, proko is janet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-23
Updated: 2018-12-23
Packaged: 2019-09-25 03:03:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17113220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brophigenia/pseuds/brophigenia
Summary: Two miles was further than it seemed from the vantage point of Titus’ back; by the time he arrived at Carterhaugh’s outer reaches, Proko was practically out of breath.(AKA, the Tam Lin AU nobody asked for but I wanted to write.)





	either their mantles of green or their maidenhead

**Author's Note:**

> guys, it's a tam lin AU. let's fucking do this.

***

“Are you listening to me?” The voice was impatient, grating; Prokopenko flicked his gaze up and blinked slowly at his warden, dark-skinned and dark-eyed Calla, Laird of Loch Fox. 

“No,” he replied, and went back to staring at the honey ribboning through his tea as he spooned it in. Too much honey; he wouldn’t be able to drink it without gumming up his mouth on the first sip. He hated tea anyway. He wondered why he couldn’t drink wine with every meal. Lady Persephone did. 

_ “Proko.” _ Calla’s tone went from exasperated to foreboding. He pouted at her; it wasn’t his fault that he couldn’t concentrate. He was  _ bored.  _ Horrendously so. There was nothing but  _ boredom _ since Skov and Swan and Jiang had been sent away. Now there was just Blue, who spent all of her time whispering to herself in corners and writing letters to Young Gansey. Blue wasn’t  _ fun.  _

Proko wanted  _ fun.  _

“What?” He sighed, and finally put all his attention onto Calla. 

Calla arched an eyebrow; she was as dark and short as Persephone was pale and tall. Sitting together with Maura between them, they seemed like a color wheel. “It’s your birthday soon.” She observed, and Proko felt a stirring of excitement in his gut. Maybe she’d bring the boys back for his birthday. 

“Yes…” Proko said, and held his breath. 

“It’s time you were given some responsibilities.” Calla said decidedly; Proko’s heart fell in his chest. He didn’t  _ want  _ responsibilities. He was the only son of a pair of dead foreigners. He was the ward of the Lairdess, and had been raised with the understanding that he’d be married off at the earliest convenience. Probably to Blue. 

“Responsibilities?” He repeated dully. No longer hopeful or caring much what she’d say. He went back to looking down at his tea. The honey looked like liquid gold, in the candlelight. 

“Yes,” Calla began. “Proko, it’s time we thought of-” 

“Carterhaugh,” Persephone interrupted airily, and Prokopenko wasn’t the only one staring at her in confused disbelief. 

_ “Carterhaugh?”  _ Calla, Maura, Proko, and Blue asked in unison. 

“Carterhaugh.” Persephone repeated, and when she repeated something it would be so. 

Carterhaugh. 

Well,  _ fuck.  _ Maybe there’d be some excitement in his life, after all. 

***

“Carterhaugh, Carterhaugh,” Gwenllian mumbled when he went to see her where she always lay draped across the stones of an old faerie wall, as comfortable there in her kirtle and cloak as a queen might be upon a velvet settee in mink. She pushed her fingers into his hair and he knelt there steadily, waiting. 

His mother had been like her. The others around the castle treated Gwenllian like some mad witch— madder than Calla, Persephone, and Maura put together. 

Her temper soothed Proko, and reminded him of home. “O I forbid you, mægden and magu alike, that wear gold in their hair,” she tugged pointedly at his hair, too fair to be charitably described as  _ gold  _ but silvery, certainly, and he knew it was the thought that counted. “To come or go by Carterhaugh, because young Joey K is there.” 

_ Joey K.  _ Something went down his spine at the name: recognition, maybe. Like someone had walked over his grave.  _ Joey K.  _ “There’s none that go by Carterhaugh but they leave him a wad, either their rings, their green mantles, or else their maidenhead.” 

“Maidenhead?” Proko said, suddenly even more interested than he’d been before. “Did you say  _ maidenhead?”  _

Gwenllian, the lady least full of propriety he’d ever encountered in his  _ life,  _ only laughed, and laughed, and laughed. 

“Don’t forget your green mantle.” She responded, and dragged Proko by the hair until his face was squashed against her kirtle, which smelled like thyme and smoke and  _ woman.  _ He liked the scent, and was content to stay where she’d put him for a while. 

She trembled a while, and then her hand unclenched from her hair. She stroked his scalp gently, a sharp counterpoint to her earlier rough treatment. 

She did not say she was sorry, because the word was not in her vocabulary, but he understood her anyway. 

***

“What the hell are you doing in my room?” Blue snapped from the doorway. Proko tossed his hand in the air and did not respond beyond that, digging further into her wardrobe. Of all the outlandish garb she owned, surely she had  _ something _ green. 

“Proko!” Blue snapped, and Proko felt a boot in his calf. When he turned his head to her, though, she was still standing in the doorway, yards away. He mumbled  _ witch  _ softly, fondly, absently, and then looked at her, considering. 

“I need a green mantle.” He said finally, deciding to let her in on the hunt. 

Nonplussed, Blue raised her eyebrows as if to say  _ go on.  _ It was a very Calla gesture. Proko wondered if he’d picked up any mannerisms from the three women, himself, after all these years in their care.

The thought was… almost warming.  

“I just  _ need _ one, Bluesy.” He wheedled, and fluttered his lashes at her in a way he thought was quite fetching but actually made him look like he had a bad case of hay fever. Blue was unimpressed.  _ Not good enough,  _ she said without speaking, only with a tilt of her chin and a sharpening to her gaze. 

“Ugh. Fine. I’m going to Carterhaugh to lose my maidenhead and I need a green mantle to do it. Are you going to help me or what?” Proko snipped out, angry at having to turn over the whole of it to Blue, who’d not  _ understand.  _

“You’re going to find Joey K?” Blue shrilled, hurrying through the door and slamming it behind her, latching it tight. “Proko. You’ll be  _ ruined.  _ You won’t be able to find a match anywhere that’ll have you—“ she froze then, and an unholy light came to her features, which were as dark and mysterious and lovely as the moors they used to play on as children. Before everything became so damn complicated. Before she was Young Sargent, heir to all of Fox Loch and its surrounding lands. Before he became painfully aware of his future, his fate. 

“You won’t be able to marry  _ me.” _ Blue finished, in a daze, quiet and almost like she spoke to no one but herself. “Proko. If you go to Carterhaugh and— you won’t be able to marry  _ me.”  _ Hope lit her face, raw and young and painful to look at too closely. 

“You don’t have to sound so thrilled about it,” Proko sniffed, if only for appearance sake, heart beginning to thunder in his mounting excitement. 

“You need a green mantle.” Blue said decisively. 

“I need a green mantle.” Proko agreed. 

***

The mantle draped across his shoulders was dyed the brightest spring green he’d ever laid his eyes upon, shot through with woven designs in rich emerald. Beautiful, and  _ expensive,  _ and definitely not Blue’s own style. She’d dragged it out from beneath her pillows; it smelled like mint and the heather and freshly-picked berries. 

Like Blue, and also… not. 

Blue wouldn’t answer when he’d asked where she’d gotten such a thing; she’d blushed furiously red, and refused to speak back in reply to his queries beyond  _ fuck off  _  and  _ shut the hell up.  _

Since he wasn’t a fucking idiot, Proko knew the mantle was Young Gansey’s. He only wondered if Young Gansey knew where his fancy bit of flash had gotten to— if Blue had bandited the thing or if it had been a  _ gift.  _

“Saucy,” had been his only comment, and she’d punched him in the left kidney for it. 

***

He decided to walk, because Carterhaugh wasn’t too far away, and Proko thought that if the trip proved  _ successful  _ he may have been too sore to sit a horse for the ride back. 

Two miles was further than it seemed from the vantage point of Titus’ back; by the time he arrived at Carterhaugh’s outer reaches, Proko was practically out of breath. 

Not with exertion; with  _ anticipation.  _

He traipsed about the patch of forest for a bit, humming and trying to seem like the maids in stories always did, innocent and prim. Corruptible. Full of sprightly virginity.  _ Nubile.  _ All the dirtiest words he’d heard the bards use, late in the evening when everyone was deep in their cups and randier for it. 

After the first hour of _traipsing_ passed with no interruption, by Joey K or any _other_ forest-dwelling entity, he decided to _stroll,_ singing quietly songs about hobgoblins and treasure, which were the things that he knew the fae liked to hear of. _Knowing_ was how he’d play it, then; uninitiated in the ways of _love,_ but not completely ignorant to the stirrings of it. 

Hour three saw him giving into his frustrations, flopping down into a patch of wild roses with a huff. Darkly, he muttered the worst curses he knew under his breath and thought to himself that it was just his own luck, to come loose-thighed into a fucking  _ magical forest  _ and end up unmolested, just as pure as he’d been when he’d entered it. 

“Fucking hopeless.” He mumbled, and resolved instead to sneak down to one of the local pubs and get roaringly drunk and then bend himself arse-up over the bar and let anyone who had a notion to ream him out so thoroughly and publicly that Calla would have to marry him to some goat herder from County Glenn. 

First, though, he’d make the miserable trip worth his while. The roses he lay in were all beautiful, and he saw a double one growing just beyond his reach, a ruff of petals so full that it looked unreal. The scent of them made him very nearly dizzy; he rolled onto his stomach and stretched out one hand, grasping its stem and pulling. 

“Damn,” he gasped, as the rose came loose and the force of his grip drove one of its thorns into his thumb, blood welling up in its wake. 

“Why have you come to Carterhaugh without my leave, and taken what is mine?” A low and terrible voice asked, and Proko had scarcely rolled onto his back before he was assaulted with the sight of a tall, handsome youth in black from head to toe, tabard and hose and all. 

“Well it took you long enough!” Proko snarled, too startled to be frightened. He clutched the rose in question to his chest. “And besides, Carterhaugh is by rights  _ mine, _ which means I can pick anything I like!” He tossed his head.

The youth, who must have been Joey K, fairly growled. Proko’s mouth drew tight, pouty, and he allowed his thighs to part, only a bit. 

“Carterhaugh belongs to  _ me,  _ brat.” Joey K enunciated, clearly at the end of his fuse. Proko hoped that him flying off the handle would result in copulation and not attempted homicide, but he did have his dirk strapped on, just in case, and his skean-du, of course. 

“Well what legal documentation do you have saying so?” Proko retorted airily, eyes flashing. “I highly doubt any court in these hills’ll side with a fae-blooded virginity-snatching layabout over the ward of Laird Fox.” 

Joey K did not answer, and instead pressed his lips tightly together. His cheeks were stained a very pretty pink. The color neatly matched the petals of the rose he’d picked. Proko’s stomach swooped with excitement. 

_ “However,”  _ he drew out, and smiled like a fox creeping into the henhouse, victorious and swoony with it. “I suppose I could be persuaded to trade you for the rose.” His grin went sharp, and so did Joey K’s gaze. 

“What have I to trade the  _ ward of Laird Fox?”  _ Joey K asked, mocking, hands clasped together behind his back in a most fetching way. He didn’t  _ look  _ the way Proko had always imagined the fae to look; he looked like he’d be right at home with Proko and the rest of the boys, making a racket in the streets and singing bawdy songs. Young. Handsome. 

“I can think of one or two things…” Proko said, feeling very brave, and Joey K licked his lips, tilting his head.  _ Listening.  _

***

“Open your thighs, brat.” Joey whispered, biting at Proko’s jaw while he snaked a hand between them, down,  _ down,  _ where no one had ever laid hands upon him before. Proko gasped, cheeks burning scarlet, and felt dizzy with it, uncomprehending. Impatient, Joey pried them apart himself, unwinding Proko’s tartan with a nimble gesture and possibly a touch of magic, as Proko wasn’t sure how else he could be so summarily undressed with so little effort, after spending so many years buttoned to the throat and skirted to the knee, hidden carefully and protected from eye and touch alike. 

“Tell me,” Joey said, as he sank two rose-oiled fingers  _ in,  _ into where Proko felt tender and most vulnerable, the very core of him. “Tell me why you’ve come.” There was violence in his kiss, in his touch, in the way he added a third finger so quickly that Proko cried out with it, unsure if it felt good or if he wanted to run and  _ couldn’t,  _ pinned as he was to the ground with the bulk of Joey K’s body and his own lightheadedness. 

“To find you!” Proko found himself exclaiming. “To- oh  _ god-”  _ he choked on his words as Joey curled his fingers, eyes rolling back in his head. Nothing had ever felt so good. No self-made pleasure had ever been so complete. There’d been nothing like  _ this.  _

“To get  _ fucked,” _ Joey finished for him, and his amusement was smoky and dark and terrible. He hipped between Proko’s thighs, replacing his fingers with his  _ cock,  _ and Proko could not remember his own  _ name,  _ much less folk songs and  _ decisions,  _ not when he was being prised open, split apart, torn open, and  _ he liked it.  _

“Joey,” he wept instead of agreeing, and wound his hands in the fae’s dark hair, blunt fingernails scraping scalp and mouth open,  _ wailing.  _ “Joey, Joey, Joey,” 

“Quit it,” Joey bit out, hips stuttering. “Shut it, I’ll fuck you as I like-” Proko’s hips bucked, moving up to meet him with such vehemence that it made Joey moan, unexpected. “Shut your fucking  _ mouth-”  _

“Joey,  _ please,  _ please,” Proko begged, unheeding. 

“I said-” Joey grunted, and could not go on, thrusts coming to an abrupt halt as he came with a violent shudder, forehead pressed to Proko’s throat and fingers clutching Proko’s waist so tight he was sure he felt his ribs creaking in protest. It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter, because he was still so full and he was still so  _ hard,  _ and nothing would ever be so good again, so he wanted to make it last as long as possible. 

Joey had other plans, and with no small amount of difficulty he transferred his bruising grip from Proko’s side to his cock, pulling him off in less than half a dozen strokes, spattering pearl-white release all over the black-threaded kilt he’d not taken off in his haste to comply with Proko’s demands of deflowering in exchange for… well,  _ reflowering. _

“Oh fuck,” Proko gasped raggedly, flinging an arm over his eyes. “Oh holy Mary mother  _ fuck.”  _

“Charming,” Joey mumbled. “What a fucking class act you are, brat.” The name should’ve bothered him, probably, but Proko decided that it was more of an endearment and went back to trying to remember how to breathe. 

_ “So  _ classy,” he agreed, mindlessly. “What the fucking hell am I gonna do  _ now?”  _ He moaned. Joey rolled off of him, onto his back, and patted at his hip, almost-soothing. 

“Go take a bath, probably? Witch hazel’ll help.” He advised. “And some liquor.” 

“Fucking hell,” Proko said, and resolved to think about it later. There would be a lot to think about later, including how he was going to manage to steal Joey K away and marry him, because now that he’d had a taste of the milk he sure as hell wasn’t going to sell the cow at auction. Fuck all the other virgins in green passing through; Proko wasn’t going to  _ share.  _

He wondered if Blue would have any idea of what to do. The thought of her aghast face had him laughing, and Joey rolled back on top of him for round two before he was done, giggling breathlessly even as he opened his legs again, their teeth clacking together clumsily. 

**Author's Note:**

> and then proko outsmarts the faerie queen with blue's help, marries K, and lives happily ever after. 
> 
> follow me @ brophigenia.tumblr.com


End file.
